


To Taste, To See

by cenotaphy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel Being Castiel, Castiel in the Bunker, Dean Being an Idiot, Fluff, Hamburgers, M/M, One Shot, Sam needs a vacation, Way more angst than fluff which is not what I was originally going for but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7691683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean persuades Cas to try out his sense of taste again. (Disclaimer: it's nowhere near as steamy as that sounds.)</p>
<p>Set at some amorphous point after 11x04.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Taste, To See

"It's not that I _can't_ taste," Cas objects.

"I know, I know, you 'taste every molecule' or whatever," says Dean. He slices an onion with quick, practiced motions of his wrist. "Wouldn't that make things taste better?"

"No, it's too much sensory information," says Cas. "The element of pleasure, which humans can derive from so many foods, is lost."

Dean takes a sip of his beer and turns the stovetop on. He glances sideways to where Cas is sitting, ramrod-straight as always, in one of the kitchen chairs. "Element of pleasure, huh? What foods did you like when you were, you know, slumming it with the mortals?"

Cas tilts his head, thinking, and Dean turns back to the stove and his half-assembled burger in order to hide his smile. He likes having Cas here, in the Bunker. It's been a few weeks since Rowena lifted her spell, and Cas seems to be doing better. He remembers Cas's sporadic appearances last year, brief visits punctuating long absences—during which, Dean admits, Cas was probably doing far more important things than babysitting him and Sam—and remembers the dull ache he felt each time Cas had dropped off the map, the gnawing that had clawed its way up through even the buzzing, clamoring hold of the Mark. He'd missed Cas. Not that he's planning on saying that out loud; there's no way to phrase it that won't sound incredibly sappy.

"The burritos I had here were very good," Cas answers finally. Dean winces, thinking of Cas's childlike pleasure that day in the Bunker, and the way it had all twisted and gone wrong when Dean had ordered him to leave. He fiddles with the frying pan, trying to cover his discomfort.

Thankfully, Cas doesn't seem to notice, for he continues, "I also very much enjoyed sandwiches made with peanut butter and sliced white bread. I tried one after I became an angel again, but—" He shrugs. "As I said, the taste of the whole was overshadowed by its components."

Dean turns. "Dude, you're telling me the only food you ever tried after getting your grace back was a lousy peanut butter sandwich?"

"The concept is the same, Dean," says Cas patiently.

"Hell _no_ it isn't," says Dean, walking over to the fridge and extracting the plastic container of uncooked hamburger patties he'd carefully mixed and shaped that afternoon. On his way back to the stove, he stops to clap Cas on the shoulder. "No way are we writing off your sense of taste before you've had one of my burgers."

"Alright," says Cas, sounding more bemused than enthusiastic. But he smiles at Dean as he says it, one of those little Castiel half-smiles that are always accompanied by the searing force of Cas's direct, open gaze. Dean feels a fluttering in his stomach at the sight. He realizes he's grinning back at Cas like an idiot and hastily turns to put the burger patties on the counter.

***

Dean sets one plate down next to his half-finished beer and slides the second across the table to Cas, who regards the burger somewhat dubiously.

"Go on, pick it up," says Dean, flicking a stray sesame seed at his friend. "Take a bite."

"I know how to eat, Dean," says Cas witheringly. He frowns at the sandwich. "Are they always this...tall?"

Dean, who hadn't been able to resist opening a jar of pickles and frying some bacon once he knew he was cooking for Cas as well as himself, grins and starts on his own burger. "You've got to try it with all the fixings, man," he says with his mouth full. "That's half the experience."

"If you say so," says Cas. Dean watches him lift the burger with both hands and take an impressively ambitious bite, chewing slowly.

"Well?" says Dean the moment he sees Cas swallow.

Cas looks at him and smiles, not a half-smile this time but a wide, happy, surprised one. "It's good," he says in wonderment. "It's _delicious_ , actually."

"No molecules?"

"Molecules, yes, but...I can taste the food itself, as well, the way I would have as a human." Cas inspects the burger, nibbles on the edge of a piece of lettuce. "imagine it's different than what you're tasting, but it's very good nevertheless." He turns his gaze back to Dean, his eyes huge and warm. "Thank you for sharing this with me, Dean."

Dean squirms a little in his seat. Cas puts the whole of his being into phrases that humans throw around casually. Things like _hello_ and _thank you_ fall from his lips with the weight of eons. All Dean has done is make a burger (a kick-ass, prize-worthy, _delicious_ burger, he acknowledges, but still just a burger), and it seems somehow inappropriate to let himself bask in the light of Cas's gratitude.  He smirks and drains the rest of his beer instead. "Told you it'd be good." He stands and lobs the empty bottle at the bin in the corner. "Let me know if you want extra ketchup."

"I don't think that will be necessary," says Cas seriously. "I can taste the acidity of the tomatoes easily. The vinegar in the pickles. And the smokiness of the bacon. And—the remnants of the yeast organisms in the bread, lending it a certain tanginess." He takes another enormous bite. "I assume the chemical reaction on the outside of the burger is the source of the pleasantly sweet flavor," he adds with his mouth full. "And it's savory inside, like most meats seem to be— _aji no moto_ , a chemist I met the early twentieth century called it."

"Nerd," says Dean fondly, and goes to the fridge for more beer.

By the time he's retrieved and opened two more bottles—one for Cas and another for himself—the angel is halfway through his burger. He slows as Dean sits back down, though, a faint frown creasing his forehead.

"What?" says Dean, picking up his barely-touched burger.

"It just occurred to me," says Cas slowly. "The reason I can taste more is probably that my grace is weakened." He looks up at Dean, his eyes darkening with worry. "It was already damaged when I retrieved it from Metatron, and it still hasn't fully recovered from Rowena's spell."

Dean frowns. Physically, Cas had appeared to have fully recovered from the effects of the curse. The angel still seems...worn, though. Listless. Dean's caught him slumped in a chair a few times, staring blankly at the wall with a tired expression on his face. And certainly Cas has shown little interest in leaving the Bunker during the week he's been there.

Dean considers that to be expected, though, after what Cas has been through. He certainly doesn't begrudge the angel taking a few days off to relax. And if he's entirely truthful with himself, he'd been reluctant to ask Cas how he was doing, for fear that the angel might take him too literally, might interpret the concern as irritation, and revert back to his old MO of spending most of his time away from the Bunker, treating it as a checkpoint rather than as a...well, as a home. So he'd tried to overlook it, telling himself Cas just needed time to keep recovering. Now, though, he wonders if he'd been wrong not to say something. If Cas's grace is damaged, is the angel going to get worse, not better? And is he going to think Dean didn't notice, didn't care?

"I'm sure you just need more time to heal," he says, his gaze flitting to Cas's and away again as he tries to mask the uncertainty in his statement.

Cas nods, but looks unhappy. "Yes, my grace should eventually mend."

"Well, then, relax," Dean urges, relieved. "Come on, man. Silver linings, here. There's lots of stuff you need to taste before your grace heals up. French fries. Blueberries. Ice cream. _Pie_. Oh man, and I've gotta take you out for a really nice steak—"

"But—" Cas interrupts. "I fear in the meantime I will be of not much service in the fight against Amara, Dean—"

_Stubborn idiot, of course that's what he's worried about_ , Dean thinks. Out loud he says, "Don't worry about that right now, Cas. Just focus on getting better."

Cas regards him doubtfully, and Dean casts his mind around, trying to think of what he can say to convince Cas, to make him understand that him getting better is the most important thing, not because of the Darkness or any other danger but because it's _Cas_. Cas, who phoned Dean while in the throes of the attack dog spell to demand to know whether the Mark was gone. Cas, who stood in the doorway of the Bunker even though he knew the kind of power thrumming in Dean's veins and said _I won't let you walk out of this room_. Cas, who's never put himself first.

To buy time, Dean says, "You've got crumbs on your chin, dude." It's true—there's a small breadcrumb clinging just below Cas's bottom lip, and before Dean realizes what he's doing, he's reached out to brush it off with his thumb.

Cas looks down at the same moment, squinting rather endearingly to try to see his own chin, poking out his tongue toward the crumb. The upshot of this combination of movements, though, is such that nothing reaches its intended destination—the crumb escapes unscathed, and Cas's tongue ends up colliding, mid-poke, with Dean's reaching thumb.

Dean freezes. Cas freezes. The sensation travels like lightning up Dean's arm and down to the base of his spine. The moment seems to stretch on for hours.

_Move, you idiot_ , screams a voice in his head. _Move your hand!_ But his brain seems to have short-circuited. He doesn't seem able to move. The frantic orders from his brain don't make it to the muscles of his right arm. He's stuck, leaning forward with his right arm stretched across the table and his thumb pressed against the tip of Cas's tongue, left hand still clutching his burger like it's a lifeline to the normalcy of thirty seconds ago.

_What is Cas doing?_ he thinks desperately. Why isn't Cas moving?

As if he can hear Dean, Cas slowly lifts his eyes and turns the full power of his stare at Dean. His expression is completely neutral, except for a hint of curiosity in his gaze. Slowly, he withdraws his tongue. Dean shivers inwardly at the feel of it moving over the pad of his thumb—it's not unpleasant, in fact it's—he tries to clamp down on the thought but fails—almost the opposite, but there's some immensity to the moment, some sense of teetering on the brink of something unknown, that's sending pulses of terror and desire into his chest.

_Pull back_ , that voice orders again, _sit back_ , and Dean is getting ready to withdraw his arm, his brain is already forming a snide joke and a chuckle that can maybe, just maybe, gloss over the situation and smooth over the awkwardness— _pull back, don't make it awkward, don't make it weird_ —of what's just happened. And he doesn't realize until it's too late that this is not what he's doing at all, that he's pushing forward, not leaning back, and then he blinks and realizes that instead of pulling his hand away he's pressed his thumb forward, against the crease between Cas's lips.

They feel dry. Warm. Rough, the skin chapped. There's no resistance under Dean's thumb, and though the loudest voice in Dean's head is demanding to know _what the hell he's doing_ , there's another, deeply buried voice that's wondering what would happen if he kept reaching, kept leaning forward. He realizes he's stopped breathing, and makes himself suck in a slow, careful gulp of air. Cas is still studying him, expression inscrutable.

_Move, move, what are you doing, what are you_ doing, the voice is chanting in Dean's head. And then Cas makes the tiniest movement of his head, eyes never leaving Dean's face, and his lips part and—Dean's thumb slips inside Cas's mouth.

The voice shuts up.

Dean lets out the breath he just took, one ragged exhale. Whatever thoughts he was trying to think, whatever commands he was trying to send to the rest of his body—they dissolve, dissipate into wispy nothing. Every nerve ending seems to zero in on what's going on at his right thumb—the warm, wet slide of Cas's tongue against the most sensitive part of the pad, the pressure of Cas's lips around the middle of the digit, just past the knuckle. The faint suction pulling at the skin, as Cas breathes out through his nose and swallows.

Cas is still looking at him—dammit, Cas is still _looking at him_ , looking at him with that razor stare, ice-blue and honest, and it's somehow simultaneously tentative and bold, careful and whole-hearted, trusting and uncertain, and beyond that there's— _fuck_ , there's fucking _challenge_ in that stare. Dean feels Cas's tongue move against his thumb, slowly, deliberately, the motion sending a jolt lurching straight through his heart and stomach and groin all at once.

"Cas," Dean tries to say, but the sound gets caught low in his throat and his own tongue is suddenly heavy and clumsy to form words. His heart is pounding along at a rate twice as fast as any reasonable human heart ought to maintain. Part of him notes inanely that after all this, the stray breadcrumb is still clinging to the edge of Cas's lip, dead yeast organisms and all. Not that Dean currently has a free hand to do anything about it, even if he was capable of moving any of his limbs at the moment.

_Maybe_ , pipes up that deeply buried voice, _maybe, instead you ought to use your_ —

"Hey, guys, where are the...the, um, the..." Sam's voice, emanating suddenly from the doorway, falters and trails off.

Dean yanks his thumb out of Cas's mouth so fast he imagines he hears a small sonic boom. He shoots halfway out of his chair, trips on nothing at all, falls back into his seat and twists to look at Sam, who is standing in the doorway holding a thick filing folder.

"Sam—uh, I—" Dean sputters. _When did he get so fucking quiet_? he rages inwardly.

Sam looks as though he rather regrets being born. "I just. Um. I wanted to know where we put the files on...never mind."

"Dean was teaching me how to taste," says Cas, in that voice like rough gravel.

"...to taste," repeats Sam. Dean feels heat rushing to his face. A smirk starts tugging at one corner of Sam's mouth. "Looks like it was going well."

"It was," says Cas, completely sincere. "Dean was cooking burgers and the skin of his thumb picked up hints of the food he was preparing, in an interesting way."

Dean whips his head back to stare at Cas in disbelief, because what the hell? Cas looks back at him innocently. Too innocently? Dean can't tell. Was that—was all that just Cas being Cas? Had Dean had been imagining the look in Cas's eyes? Misinterpreting it? He'd been overreacting, surely—reading too much into a gaze that had always been unfathomable. What if that was just Cas being _Cas_ —curious about humanity, completely oblivious to social conventions? _You idiot_ , says the dominant voice in his head, regaining sway. _You idiot. What did you think it was?_

He forces a laugh. "Yeah, you'll pick up salmonella, pulling stunts like that, Cas." _Idiot. Idiot. Idiot._

Is that a flicker of uncertainty in Cas's eyes? Surely Dean's imagining the small flare of hurt—regret, almost—he thinks he sees for a moment.

"I can't get sick, Dean, even if I _am_ weakened currently," says Cas calmly. "And I did not detect any salmonella bacteria on your thumb. It was mostly flour dust from the hamburger buns, and grease residue from the bacon."

"Good for you," says Dean. He locks eyes with the angel. _Nothing to worry about_ , he tells himself. Just Cas being Cas. This is good. Much better than what he thought it—what it seemed like. No awkwardness. No electric tremors rocking through his chest.

"Right," says Sam loudly. "Right. Well, I'm just going to get back. To researching. In the library."

Dean can't deal with this anymore. "No, you stay. Have some lettuce leaves or something." He stands, backs away. "You, um, you have crumbs on your chin, Cas," he mutters, and flees to his room, where he takes refuge in a hot shower. The warm slide of the water on his hands and face reminds him of Cas's tongue, the sensation somehow both disconcerting and comforting.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be cute and happy but ended up being kind of different than how I originally thought it would be. I hope you enjoyed it anyway!


End file.
